Ort der Unschuld

Door Christophe Muylaert, 2026

40cm x 50cm

Ort der Unschuld is a spatial installation with video that examines the pursuit of innocence and purity as a political, ideological, and aesthetic construct. Starting from a kitschy souvenir plate from Berchtesgaden — a site that functioned both as a tourist destination and as Adolf Hitler’s mountain retreat — the work traces how ideals of authenticity, nature, and moral renewal recur across different historical contexts. The installation connects Lebensreform ideology, Heidegger’s philosophy, Nazi imagery, and postwar mass tourism, revealing how the desire for purity often entails a rejection of modernity, plurality, and democratic complexity. In the video, vacation footage filmed by Eva Braun is juxtaposed with tourist home movies from the 1960s and 1970s, exposing striking similarities in gesture, atmosphere, and visual language. Rather than equating historical guilt, the work reveals how images of innocence function as moral anesthesia. Ort der Unschuld ultimately extends this logic to contemporary travel culture, where nature and tourism are marketed as sources of authenticity and moral escape. Innocence appears not as a state of being, but as a powerful narrative — one that continues to circulate between ideology, aesthetics, and consumption.

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